


coppo loco

by leoandsnake



Series: un jour je serai de retour [2]
Category: Disco Elysium (Video Game)
Genre: Drug Use, Exes, M/M, kim is immediately regretting his transfer request, precinct 41 stuff, tender moments, wound care
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-06
Updated: 2021-01-06
Packaged: 2021-03-17 06:35:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,390
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28595589
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/leoandsnake/pseuds/leoandsnake
Summary: Kim squints at Harry while processing this information. “Okay,” he says. “That actually does explain some things about your… dynamic. So, you two were intimate? This wasn’t a, khm… unrequited situation?"“On which end would you expect it to be unrequited, Kim?” Harry says, offended.
Relationships: Harry Du Bois/Jean Vicquemare
Series: un jour je serai de retour [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2095374
Comments: 14
Kudos: 56





	coppo loco

Harry wakes up in the ruins of his trashed apartment to the sound of someone knocking on his front door.

He slept on his futon, after finding out when he got home last night that his bed is covered in cigarette butts and empty vodka bottles. The living room floor is similarly littered — he avoids the broken glass on his way to the front door.

PERCEPTION: In a fit of drunkenness, you scrawled WHEN WILL IT END? on the inside of your front door in marker.

SHIVERS: IN TWENTY-TWO YEARS!

Harry ignores that and opens the door. Kim is standing there, looking as composed as he always does.

“You’re always waking me up with loud noises, Kim,” Harry notes.

“Sorry,” Kim says with a smile. “Are you hungover?”

“No, I just didn’t get that much sleep.” Harry gestures vaguely in the direction of his bedroom. “There’s some debris in my bed.”

“Yes, I was going to say, your apartment looks about as disco as your room at the hostel did.”

“I think there’s been an air raid in here,” Harry says. “Air-to-surface missiles, possibly.”

“In your apartment specifically? Leaving the rest of the building untouched?”

Harry nods. “Must have been an assassination attempt.”

“Hmm,” Kim says. “Anyway. Satellite-Officer Vicquemare asked me to come by and wake you up for breakfast and coffee before we head into the station today.”

ESPRIT DE CORPS: Jean is avoiding you after last night. He also knows that Kim is far less fed up with you than he is, and is a better candidate for the position of your handler.

Harry pulls his jacket on. “Okay,” he says. “Can I have a cigarette?”

Kim extends his pack to Harry, who takes one and lights it. “How’s the leg?” he says as they step into the hallway.

Harry locks his apartment, entirely out of muscle memory. No one would break into that hellhole.

LOGIC: If they did, they’d just assume someone else had beat them to tossing the place.

“The leg is usable,” Harry says.

Kim nods. “Then let’s rock and roll.”

/

The diner they go to doesn’t allow smoking indoors, which Harry thinks is bullshit. He steps out after they order and makes short work of another cigarette, to prevent himself from taking any of the speed that he found in his apartment last night and tucked into his jacket pocket just in case.

While he smokes, he listens to the screaming match between a man and a woman that’s taking place in an apartment above the diner. Their windows are wide open, and the woman keeps screaming, “You stupid bastard!”

Someone in the apartment throws a bottle and shatters it. The sound makes the hair on Harry’s arms stand on end, and he thinks of Jean. He puts his cigarette out on his boot heel, the way he saw Kim do yesterday morning —

REACTION SPEED: Hold on, that was only _yesterday?_

ENCYCLOPEDIA: Yes.

— and heads back into the diner.

Kim is sitting at their table toward the back, drinking his coffee. Their food hasn’t come yet, but that’s fine, because Harry isn’t very hungry anyway. More than anything, he wants a rum and lemonade.

Harry slides back into the booth across from Kim.

“Feel better?” Kim says.

PHYSICAL INSTRUMENT: You do.

“Yes,” Harry says. “Hey, can I bounce something off of you?”

“Of course,” Kim says. “Case-related?”

“My life-related,” Harry says. “Sorry. I know you hate that.”

“Hate is a strong word. I’m more comfortable discussing work, but we can discuss your life. I don’t know much more about you than you do, though.” Kim studies him, the morning sun glinting off of his glasses. “Satellite-Officer Vicquemare would be a better source of information than I would.”

“It’s about him, though,” Harry says, feeling uneasy. Are there spies in this diner? It _is_ awfully close to Precinct 41. He turns in his seat, scanning the restaurant, but it’s nearly empty, and Sad FM is blaring loudly from speakers on the ceiling.

“I know even less about him,” Kim says.

“Right, but you’re an expert on… homosexual matters.”

Kim blinks at him.

EMPATHY: He genuinely didn’t see this coming at all.

“I think you’re overstating my expertise,” Kim says, and sips his coffee again. “I’m simply a homosexual myself, I can’t speak to the homosexual experience of others. Is Jean?”

RHETORIC: Interesting how just the possibility of being in the homosexual brotherhood with Jean has caused Kim to leap to first name basis with him.

Harry taps the table and leans in. “We’re homosexuals together,” he whispers. “Me and him. Or we were… I think it ended badly, in bloodlust. And then I lost my memory. But I found out last night, because I went to his apartment by accident.”

Kim squints at Harry while processing this information. “Okay,” he says. “That actually does explain some things about your… dynamic. So, you two were intimate? This wasn’t a, khm… unrequited situation?”

“On which end would you expect it to be unrequited, Kim?” Harry says, offended.

“I would make no such assumptions. I’m just trying to figure this out.”

“It was mutual and intimate,” Harry says. “Very intimate. I got some memories back, and I’m pretty sure we’ve had intercourse. The most concerning thing about that is that I don’t even remember how homosexual intercourse works.” He pauses, racking his brain. “I’m not sure I even remember how heterosexual intercourse works.”

Kim, expressionless, makes an obscene gesture.

“Alright, that’s what I thought,” Harry says, relieved. “But I think there was also a lot of fellatio.”

AUTHORITY: Stop talking.

“I think we did fellatio in the captain’s office?”

AUTHORITY: I told you to stop talking.

“No, no,” Kim says in desperation. He puts his hands up. “Please, officer.”

Their stone-faced waitress comes over, then, and sets their food on the table. They both ordered toast, and Harry ordered one egg to go with his.

When she’s gone, Kim leans forward and says, “What exactly do you want my advice on?”

“What do I do?” Harry whispers. “I don’t know what to do. Is he in love with me?”

EMPATHY: He was in love with you, once. Now whatever feelings he has for you are in a locked safe at the bottom of his emotional sea. Good luck getting to them.

LOGIC: You’d need a team of divers with lockpicking expertise.

“I don’t know,” Kim says. “Were you in love with him?”

INLAND EMPIRE: You were in love with police work, alcohol, speed, and a mostly inaccurate compendium of Dora memories. You had no room left in you to truly love another human being.

ELECTROCHEMISTRY: But you were very fond of him. He brought out a tenderness in you which you thought had died. You used to kiss him on his head while he was sleeping.

ESPRIT DE CORPS: Some of the gnawing, ulceric regret you experienced upon waking from your episode was due to your treatment of Jean and the task force in general, not just your loss of Dora. There’s a reason those feelings were hidden in your police-issue clipboard, of all places.

LOGIC: Jean, too, is a dreaded ex-something. One that went unmythologized — hiding in plain sight.

“No,” Harry says.

DRAMA: Partially a lie, sire.

“What would you do if you were me?” he adds.

Kim lifts his head, and his eyes are obscured behind the sun gleaming off his glasses. “I would concentrate on healing from my litany of medical crises, getting my memory back, and our continuing work in Martinaise,” he says. “I wouldn’t dwell excessively on my personal life, as you are prone to do.”

“I’m scared of my body, Kim. It does crazy antics and homosexual things with little to no input from me.”

“Detective,” Kim says, “please eat your toast.”

/

Kim drives them to the 41st and parks in the garage that’s reserved for guests of the precinct. (ESPRIT DE CORPS: This is where Trant Heidelstam parks when he comes in to do work for the task force.) The morning sun has gone away. An icy rain is now falling from the gunmetal sky, sprinkling them as they walk past the series of garages toward the main entrance.

“I don’t know where my umbrella is,” Harry says.

ENCYCLOPEDIA: Neither do I!

“You haven’t needed it all week,” Kim says. “You’ve been running around in the rain and snow without one.”

They enter the lobby, passing officers whose faces Harry recognizes, though he can’t recall their names. They don’t make eye contact with him. He must be truly radioactive.

Harry brushes rain off of his coat as they walk. The rain sounds louder in here than it did outside — it’s pattering off the domed roof. Under the sound of the rain is the chatter of cops in the bullpen talking to each other, plus constant radio static and transmissions.

INLAND EMPIRE: This is your real home. Not that pile of cigarette butts and broken glass that you rent out.

“Satellite-Officer Vicquemare told me to accompany you to the briefing room,” Kim says, glancing at Harry. “Apparently we’re needed there this morning, at…” He checks his watch. “Precisely 8:00. It’s 7:59. Shall we?”

Harry nods, and Kim looks expectantly at him.

LOGIC: This is _your_ precinct. He doesn’t know where to go. You’re supposed to know that.

“Oh!” Harry says, and starts leading the way. He has no idea where he’s going, either, but in spite of this, his legs lead him across the bullpen and down a hallway toward a door that has a battered BRIEFING ROOM doorplate.

Everywhere he walks, whoever he passes goes silent, even if they were in the middle of a conversation. It’s very obvious, and troubling.

Harry leads Kim into the room, which Jean is standing at the front of, uniformed. He looks relieved to see them.

“Hello,” he says, flicking his eyes diagnostically over Harry before extending his hand for Kim to shake. “Are we ready?”

“Ready for what?” Harry says.

“To rally the troops,” Jean says.

The way he talks, it’s like nothing happened between them last night. The only giveaway is his body language, which is neurotically stiff.

AUTHORITY: Tell him that Kim knows you two used to fuck. That’ll throw him off. He already has a _thing_ about you and Kim.

“I don’t know how to rally the troops,” Harry says, glancing around at the officers gathered in the briefing room. There are too many of them, and too few chairs — uniformed men and women line the walls, leaning on them and talking quietly to each other.

“You don’t have to,” Jean says, with growing impatience. “You’re needed only as a physical presence. Just stand there.”

“We can cover for you,” Kim adds in an undertone.

Harry nods.

“Good morning,” Jean says to the room. The officers stop talking and start to pay attention.

ESPRIT DE CORPS: These are mostly D-wing officers, many formerly of the Major Crimes Unit, _née_ C-wing, until your alcoholic rage sent all but the most loyal ones fleeing to other assignments. Twenty or so bodies, and there is no one in this room who outranks you — in fact, most of them were once direct reports of yours. They’re here to receive marching orders.

“As you can see,” Jean says, indicating Harry and Kim with a tilt of his head, “Lieutenant-Yefreitor Du Bois and the 57th’s Lieutenant Kitsuragi have returned after making an arrest in the Martinaise lynching.”

This receives tepid applause. Jean waits for it to die down before adding, “Our work in Martinaise doesn’t end there. The préfet de police has ordered that the area will remain under the nonstop supervision of the RCM for the next two weeks.”

(ESPRIT DE CORPS: Patrol Officers Sebastian Barbieri and Manon Maxwell are on their way to Martinaise right now, heading south on the motorway through a light rain, complaining non-stop about the fact that they have to spend two weeks on foot patrol in ‘this shithole.’

“It could be worse,” Manon says. “We could be on the night shift.”)

“In addition,” Jean adds, “the 41st and 57th will be co-operating on an investigation into the assassination of Tiphaine Holly, the previous head of the Débardeurs' Union — carried out by Dros, but arranged by the Claire brothers.”

“I have a question,” says Chester McLaine.

“Yes,” Jean says.

EMPATHY: He tires of Chester easily.

“Why do we care?” Chester says. He looks around. “No one here has any interest in going down to that shithole to scrape barnacles off of drug addicts, dockworkers and hobos.” He points at Kim. “Pin it on that guy and send him home to the 57th with it.”

“We’re not pinning anything on anyone,” Jean says. “We’ve just been handed an easy clearance on a twenty-year-old cold murder that we didn’t even know about. We may be able to bust an organized crime syndicate in the process. What kind of cop are you?” He glances over at Kim. “Anyway, Lieutenant Kitsuragi has officially applied for a transfer to the 41st, so we can’t pin it on him anyway.”

“Hello,” Kim says to no one in particular, with a little wave. Two cops wave back.

“I also have a question,” Mack Torson says. “Is Harry not your superior officer anymore, since his brain exploded? And if he is, why isn’t he doing any talking?”

HALF LIGHT: Kill this guy. Tackle him and rip his throat out with your teeth.

AUTHORITY: No, not yet. Wait a second.

“Harry suffered a medical trauma while working the case,” Jean says coolly. “He’s still recovering. He’s here today in a show of support, not in an official capacity.”

Michel Williams, standing in the back next to Sundance, clears his throat. “Is it true that he doesn’t remember shit about shit?” he asks. “Fischer said he confirmed in his debriefing that he doesn’t remember anything.”

Sundance nods, and this sets off a ripple of murmuring that crests to become a wave of overlapping questions.

“Hey,” Jean says, raising his voice. “We’re not here to discuss Lieutenant-Yefreitor Du Bois’ brain.”

“No fucking way he doesn’t remember anything,” Mack says. “That’s insane. Put Tequila Sunset out to pasture, if that’s true. He destroyed an MC! Does he remember _that_?”

ESPRIT DE CORPS: Mack Torson’s wife is at home, right now, having sex with their apartment building’s _surveillant d'immeuble._

“Mack,” Harry booms, and the entire room goes silent. “Mack ‘The Torso’ Torson! Your wife cheats on you, doesn’t she? With the building superintendent? Guy with a mustache?”

Mack’s entire face goes slack and blank.

PERCEPTION: Under the desk he’s sitting at, he balls one hand into a fist.

The silence grows louder, and Harry turns his attention to Chester. “Chester! You have a stash of Sildenaphil in your locker that you stole from the evidence room. You have to take massive amounts of it just to maintain an erection.”

Chester stares at him in horror. Next to him, Jean lets out a pained huff of air. Kim is cleaning his glasses.

EMPATHY: He’s wondering if it’s possible for him to quietly withdraw his transfer application.

“I don’t forget fucking anything,” Harry says, making his voice as loud as possible. Every cop in the room is cringing, either internally or externally. “I’m a burning sun. I’m Jamrock. I’m Revachol. I see everything, I know everything. You’re going to investigate this already-solved assassination that I just handed to all of you, and you’re going to like it.”

HALF LIGHT: Good job.

AUTHORITY: Very good job. Maybe not with the burning sun stuff, but everything else was good.

“See,” Jean says mildly. “His memory is fine. Be careful what you wish for.”

EMPATHY: He’s pleased and a little turned on by your shouting.

“Is it?” Mack challenges, his face brick-red. “Hey, LT. You remember the names of any of the guys you put down? You’ve only put down three, so you must know those off the top of your head.”

ESPRIT DE CORPS: ‘Three’ is said in a jeering way. He thinks you should have killed way more people by now. He thinks you should be mowing down great swaths of the Jamrock populace with your Villiers-LaSalle pepperbox, and you’re a pussy for not doing so.

AUTHORITY: Good thing he doesn’t know about you licking Jean’s balls in the captain’s office! Let’s keep it that way.

“I’m not on trial here,” Harry says, then hesitates and holds up four fingers. “And I’ve put down _four_ guys, now.”

Kim tucks his lips into his mouth.

EMPATHY: He’s holding in laughter at the absurdity of this situation.

“Enough,” Jean says. “Barbieri and Maxwell are on their way to patrol the harbor and coast, and Crandell and Kleiner will take over for them this evening. In the meantime, the Major Crimes Unit will be taking on the investigation into the Débardeurs' Union. Part of the reason I’ve called you all in here is to find out who would like to join, or re-join, the task force.”

There’s silence, and then McLaine says, “Under _Mullen_?”

“If Lieutenant Kitsuragi’s transfer is successful, he’ll be assigned to the Major Crimes Unit,” Jean drawls. “So, if you would prefer not to be… under Harry… then don’t think of it as being under Harry.”

RHETORIC: A teeny stutter on ‘under Harry.’

ELECTROCHEMISTRY: Seems like _someone_ would prefer to be under Harry. Kachow!

Harry glances at Jean, who clears his throat and gives him an apologetic look. Oh, he must think Harry is offended by the implication that his authority will be supplanted by Kim’s, not that Harry is trying to remember what boning him felt like.

ELECTROCHEMISTRY: It felt good! Try it again sometime.

“Look,” Harry says, addressing the room at large, “I don’t give a shit. I just want to solve crimes. _Major_ crimes. So if you want to solve major crimes, come on over to the Major Crimes Unit. If you want to shoot hobos and rabid dogs in alleys, keep doing what you’re doing. That’s it, I’m out.”

He spreads his hands and is met with another silence.

“I’ve never shot a hobo,” one officer says, sounding affronted. Harry thinks her name might be Fabienne. He also thinks he hit on her at a work party once.

“Don’t listen to anything Harry is saying,” Jean says, shooting him a stern look. “He’s unwell. He might not even remain at his current rank. This is all up in the air, for now. If you’re interested in working with Major Crimes, don’t even consider Harry to be a factor.”

AUTHORITY: He’s officially throwing you under the bus — no longer even calling you Lieutenant-Yefreitor Du Bois. You have lost all control of this situation. He was still calling you Lieutenant-Yefreitor Du Bois to your colleagues when you were lying in a puddle of your own vomit on Boogie Street with your pants around your ankles.

“I’m highly skeptical,” says Chad Tillbrook, who’s lounging against the wall by the doorway. “And I think I speak for everyone when I say that.”

Mollins, who’s sitting at the desk closest to Tillbrook, nods. “Minot said this isn’t even the first time he’s blacked out,” he says.

“Be as skeptical as you want,” Harry says. “You can either solve crimes, or not solve them. I intend to solve all the crime. You want to act squeamish about how we get there, fine. You can go shoot dogs.”

“I shot _one_ rabid dog!” Tillbrook shouts at him. “And I don’t even know how you know about that!”

“I don’t know how I know about that either!” Harry shouts back. “I guess I’m just that good a detective, you fucking dog-shooter!”

Someone is pulling on Harry’s sleeve, dragging him out of the room. Harry is all the way out in the hallway, with the briefing room door being pushed shut behind him, before he realizes that someone is Kim.

“What are you doing?” Kim says, looking concerned.

“These are the most ungrateful losers I’ve ever met in my life,” Harry says. “I now understand why I drank until my brain exploded. They drove me to it.”

“Detective, this is unproductive.” Kim adjusts his glasses and presses his knuckle to the bridge of his nose. “Can I discuss something with you? Lieutenant to lieutenant?”

“Sure.”

“Everyone in that room ranks below you,” Kim says, pointing toward the windows into the briefing room, the blinds of which are drawn. “They rely on you for stability and leadership. They rely on you to have a clear vision. There is a paternal aspect to it. I share your rank, therefore I don’t require that of you. We can work together as equals, and I can accept your eccentricities without being forced to indulge them.”

“So basically, you’re cool, and they’re lame,” Harry says, nodding.

“No,” Kim says. “I’m saying that you owe them something you don’t owe to me.”

ESPRIT DE CORPS: What this is really about is that he thinks it was inappropriate for you to be screwing Jean, who ranks below you and is a decade younger. He thinks that was slimewad behavior.

“Okay,” Harry says, still nodding. “Look, if you want to be the one in charge of the task force, I don’t give a shit. I can be a line detective, whatever, I just want to put bad guys away.”

“It might come to that,” Kim says, “although I hope it doesn’t. I think you’re an excellent leader, when you’re not acting insane.”

“That’s kind of you to say, Kim.”

“Is it?”

The briefing room door opens, and cops start filing out, shooting Harry dirty looks as they do. Chad gives him the finger; so do Mack and Chester. Harry gives it to them back, and Kim slaps his hand down.

Jean is the last to appear. He shakes his head at Harry, looking murderous.

“Officer Vicquemare,” Kim says. “Can we talk in private?”

Jean glances at Kim, seeming surprised, but he nods. “Go sit down somewhere, shitkid,” he says to Harry with a withering look, then walks away down the hallway with Kim, toward a secluded and quiet corner.

Harry doesn’t know what the hell all that is about, but he does know one thing — there are plenty of vending machines in this building. He heads off in search of one.

/

Harry is sitting at a table in the bleak little precinct break room, enjoying a packet of crackers, when someone comes up behind him and slaps him in the head. He turns and is unsurprised to see Jean standing over him, looking furious.

“Have a seat,” Harry says.

Jean doesn’t move, so Harry offers him a cracker.

“I don’t want crackers!” Jean exclaims. “What the fuck did you tell Lieutenant Kitsuragi?”

SUGGESTION: Play dumb.

“About what?” Harry says innocently.

“You know what!” Jean collapses into the chair across from him.

“What did he say to you?”

Jean fixes him with the same withering look from fifteen minutes ago. “He said you told him that we had a _liaison_ ,” he says, his voice dripping with irritation. “He’s _concerned_ about me. He asked if I had felt pressured into anything by an older, more experienced senior officer.”

Harry sits with this for a moment. “Kim thinks I’m a sex maniac?” he says, hurt.

“No, I got the impression it was more procedural than anything. Like he felt he wouldn’t be doing his job properly if he didn’t ask.”

“Did you feel pressured by me?” Harry says.

“Of course not,” Jean snaps.

EMPATHY: He’s offended by the implication that he couldn’t fight off a man who was actively dying of alcoholism.

“So you were attracted to me before I came onto you?”

“Yes. I’m a very troubled person. I can’t believe you’ve told a man I met _yesterday_ all about my sex life.”

“I didn’t,” Harry says. “I don’t remember our sex life. All I told him was that I vaguely remembered that there was intercourse and fellatio.”

Jean appears to collapse in on himself, grabbing each end of his jacket and pulling them tight across his chest, groaning as he slumps onto the table. “Please,” he says. “Please, God. Please make him stop.”

Harry watches him writhe. “ _Was_ there intercourse and fellatio?”

“I’m going to shoot myself in the head.”

“That’s my line,” Harry says, and to his relief, Jean starts laughing.

“He asked me if I’m _okay_ ,” Jean says. “Do you understand how embarrassing that is?”

“Are you okay?” Harry says.

“Of course not, but it’s humiliating to be asked.”

“Is it my fault you’re not okay?”

“No,” Jean says. “You’re just a symptom. And I told your new partner exactly that.”

EMPATHY: A symptom of depression. You’re a knife he used to cut himself. He knew, going in, how badly you would hurt him.

Jean, seeming to have downshifted into a cruising gear, removes a notepad and pen from one of his pockets. He starts paging through the pad.

“What are you doing?” Harry says.

PERCEPTION: He’s flipping through the pages too fast for you to be able to read them, plus his handwriting is messy.

“Figuring out what I need to do today,” Jean murmurs, sounding distracted. “That meeting this morning was the big thing, but I have some loose ends on ongoing cases that I need to tie up before I can pass them off.” Harry looks at him blankly, and he adds, “So I can go full speed into building a case against the Claires.”

“How big an undertaking is that going to be?”

“Massive.”

“Can I help?” Harry says. “Did we share a caseload? We were partners.”

“First of all,” Jean says, glancing up at him, “you’ve lost your memory, so you’re not going to be any help to me on ongoing cases. Second of all, you went _solo_ , remember? You detached yourself.”

“I was reading my case files, back in Martinaise,” Harry says. “The square bullet hole murders… and so on.”

“And so on,” Jean repeats. “Well, did you solve that one?”

“Not yet,” Harry says.

“You just keep working on that, then, Son of Lung,” Jean says, before looking back down at his notebook. He turns to a fresh page and starts to write, looking absorbed in what he’s doing.

Harry eats some more crackers. “Are you working?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

Jean looks up, then appears confused. “I don’t know.”

EMPATHY: He finds it comforting to be around you, and doing work is easier in your presence. This is a habit for him; he’s done it many times.

“I have to meet with the captain in half an hour,” Harry says, glancing at his watch. “Can you remind me what I call him?”

“Pryce, usually,” Jean says. “Ptolemy, sometimes. You don’t call him Captain. You tend to put yourself on a first-name basis with everyone.”

“Do I?”

“Yes. But you’re not going to convince Pryce that you’re fine just by knowing what to call him.”

“I’m a pretty good bullshitter,” Harry says confidently.

Jean rolls his eyes. “Do you want me to come with you? Run interference?”

VOLITION: That’s a good idea. You’ve had Kim running interference for you this past week, saving you from the inferno of your brain. But Kim can’t do that here — he doesn’t know your captain.

“Sure,” Harry says.

“Fine,” Jean says. “Then let me work in peace until we go up.”

“Okay.”

/

Pryce’s office is dark and cramped with furniture. The walls are laden with medals, awards, and photos of the captain with people who Harry imagines must be important. The green lamp on his desk lights Pyrce from below and makes him look forbidding.

“Harry!” he says cheerily, when Harry walks in. “And Jean!”

Harry looks around before taking a seat in one of the chairs in front of the desk.

ELECTROCHEMISTRY: Oh yes, you’ve given _and_ received fellatio in this office, Harry. Really nasty stuff, too. Real potent slob jobs.

Harry glances over at Jean, who looks bored and tired. It’s hard to believe that they ever passionately fellated each other, but when he remembers how aroused he got while pressing Jean up against the sink yesterday, it isn’t quite as hard to believe.

PHYSICAL INSTRUMENT: I know all your truest desires, and you hate me for it. Everyone alive hates their body for this exact reason.

“How are we, gentlemen?” Pryce says, glancing between them.

“I feel great,” Harry lies. “I feel like a million, uh, money. Ready to get back out there.”

“He’s not even remotely ready to ‘get back out there’,” Jean drawls.

Pryce laughs. “Gottlieb says you’re on death’s door, Harry,” he says. “And Jules says you’ve lost your mind, on top of your gun and your badge.”

“I’m in full possession of my gun, my mind and my badge,” Harry says.

ELECTROCHEMISTRY: You and Jean had fun on the captain’s desk, here. You used your handcuffs on him.

LOGIC: Wait, where was everyone else while this pornographic activity was going on?

ENCYCLOPEDIA: Downstairs at the holiday party!

Harry stares at the desk in question. It’s just a normal desk, and yet it’s lighting up the pleasure centers of his brain like some kind of Dolorian apparition. He turns and looks at Jean, who looks back at him in bafflement.

“Well, that’s good to hear,” Pryce says. “I mean, you killed it in Martinaise. Fantastic job on a tough, tough case. I’m thinking we could spare you for a few days of sick leave… you’re a tough son of a bitch. I’m sure you’ll be in good working order by the time you get back.”

“I think he needs more than a few days, sir,” Jean says. “More like a few weeks.”

“Nonsense,” Pryce says, with a flap of his hand. “We need to get going on this case against the Claires, don’t we? Harry’s the fount of information on that.”

LOGIC: This man wants to work you to death, and he wants you to let him do it. When he’s done with you, he’ll toss your carcass onto the fire and warm his hands.

EMPATHY: Jean knows this, too, and it worries him. He knows how fragile you are.

“It’s up to Harry,” Jean says, his tone crisp.

EMPATHY: He’s resigned himself to whatever is going to happen here.

Harry knows what will happen if he’s off for weeks, or even days: he’ll sink into the abyss of alcohol and die. He shoots Jean a look intended to communicate this, then says, “I can work. Let me do menial shit. I don’t care. I need to work.”

“Great,” Pryce says.

Jean glances between them, obviously appalled.

“Once you have this operation up and running, Jean, I’d like you to go with Harry back out to Martinaise,” Pryce says. “Take Kitsuragi with you — that whole thing’s pretty much a done deal. I’d like Harry to take another stab at opening that fat fuck up before those guys catch wind of this investigation and that harbor gets locked down for good. You think you still have an in at the harbor?”

Harry thinks of Titus, Easy Leo, and Call Me Mañana. “I could get back in.”

HALF LIGHT: That would be satisfying. Bust back in there. Claw your way back in there. Rip Evrart apart. Find Edgar and rip him apart, too. Eat them. Gain their power. Become the ultimate capitalist.

VOLITION: Unless they see you coming and blow you away on your way in.

Pryce is looking at Harry like he knows exactly what he’s thinking. “Get Harry on the phone with ICP,” he says to Jean. “I want to cross reference everything in that brain of his with everything their database has on the Débardeurs' Union.” He points at Harry’s skull.

Jean looks warily at Harry. “Fine,” he says.

/

Harry ends up spending the rest of the day cooped up in a small windowless room with a massive radio computer, waiting for it to spit out all of the paper that the ICP is sending over. It’s taking ages due to the classified nature of the documents. Every time he wants to print another page, he has to get ahold of the password repeater and repeat the RCM’s password to the ICP database, then provide his name, rank and badge number. Every time. For every single page.

“This seems cruel,” Harry says, after page 57. “I’m not a well man, I have some kind of brain damage. Can’t you just send all the pages through at once?”

“No,” the ICP password repeater says, her voice flat. “This is protocol. Each page requires approval.”

After page 83, Harry decides to take a break. He finds a small rubber ball on the ground near the radio computer and sits down in a hard chair, bouncing the ball off the wall opposite him endlessly. This is what he’s doing when Jean comes looking for him.

“I’m working,” Harry says in a panic when Jean opens the door. “I’m busy.”

Jean ignores this completely. “Are you getting anything useful?” he says, picking up half of the sheaf of papers that are lying atop a cabinet and paging through them.

Harry hasn’t read a single one of those papers yet, so he weighs the odds and makes a calculated guess that at least one of them must contain useful intel. “Yes.”

“Like what?”

DRAMA: Oops.

“Information,” Harry wagers.

“Okay, so you haven’t read any of this,” Jean says without looking up.

“Correct.”

They lapse into silence. The room is stuffy and claustrophobic; Harry can smell Jean’s cologne, and the damp aroma of rainwater that must have impregnated his clothes when he stepped outside to smoke, earlier. He can also smell that smoke.

Before he really knows what he’s doing, he finds himself getting to his feet and sidling up behind Jean, burying his face in his neck and inhaling.

“I thought I told you to stop touching me,” Jean murmurs, but he doesn’t move away.

“I don’t know why I’m touching you,” Harry says, running his hands down Jean’s muscular back and down over his waist, where they settle.

Electricity bristles between them; the radio computer hums in the background. Harry lifts a hand to part Jean’s hair, then presses his nose to his skull and inhales. The smoke smell is more crisp, now. Memories flash behind Harry’s eyelids in a dizzying series, too fast for him to make sense of any of them.

PHYSICAL INSTRUMENT: You’ve done this in this very room before… the mingling smells of smoke, live machinery, fresh ink and rainwater paired with Jean’s body under your hands.

Harry reaches over and flips the lock on the door.

“Don’t do that,” Jean whispers. “Don’t turn the lock like we’re going to have sex.” His thick Revacholian accent gets even thicker whenever Harry puts his hands on him.

“I’m not,” Harry says honestly. He doesn’t think his heart, in its current state, would survive sex. “I just want to touch you. It helps me to touch you.”

INLAND EMPIRE: Jean is breathing faster. He’s flustered and aroused.

He turns around to face Harry, who responds by pressing him up against the cabinet. The lengths of their thighs rub together.

“You smell good,” Harry says, his voice hoarse.

“You smell like alcohol,” Jean replies. His eyes are soft.

EMPATHY: Implausibly, he’s looking at you with affection.

Harry leans in and kisses him. He feels like he needs to do this to breathe, like it’s reverse CPR — he must suck the air from Jean’s lungs to live.

Jean kisses him back deeply and immediately, letting his mouth fall open.

EMPATHY: He’s been craving this. He’s wanted to touch you all day.

Their kissing becomes sloppy and aggressive before long. They both get hard and start tugging at each other’s clothes, vertically dry humping, moaning, their breath hitching. Jean accidentally knocks the sheaf of papers over, and they spill onto the floor. Neither of them move to remedy this.

After either one minute or a hundred of them, Jean turns his face from Harry’s, breaking the kiss. Their facial hair scrapes as he does so.

Harry keeps his hands on Jean’s ribs, feeling them move as his lungs expand and deflate. They breathe each other’s air in silence for a while, each internally pulling themselves together.

“Sorry,” Harry says.

“Don’t apologize,” Jean says. “Not for this, anyway.”

“I don’t even know what I’m doing or why I’m doing it.”

“You’ve done this before,” Jean murmurs. “You came in here once, while I was getting an ICP report… you distracted me. You locked the door.”

ELECTROCHEMISTRY: Then you made out, and he blew you. Sank down onto his knees and sucked you good, made your eyes roll back. Where’s Round 2?

“I think I remember that,” Harry says. He’s quiet. “What was I doing to myself, before I lost my memory? Why does Pryce not seem to care if I live or die?”

Jean swallows.

EMPATHY: He’s in pain again, pain about you.

“He doesn’t think you’ll live much longer either way,” he says. His breath is hot against Harry’s neck, and he’s clinging to Harry’s jacket sleeves. “He’s just trying to scrape as many clearances out of you as he can get before you go.”

Harry’s chest aches. That reminds him of something Klaasje said about scraping up happiness. _“Going around with our little scouring sticks…”_

Whatever’s going on between his body and Jean’s is chemical in a painful way, like an acid burn. It’s too potent and bitter. They would need to have an hours-long vicious fuck to get it out of their systems, and Harry knows that isn’t on the table. So he takes a step back from him, pulling out of his grasp.

“Does anyone else know about us?” he says.

Jean wipes his mouth. “Besides your boyfriend Kim? Just Judit.”

“Why does _she_ know?” Harry exclaims.

“Because she found us dry humping in your MC once.”

ENCYCLOPEDIA: Footsteps crunching on the gravel beside the car, the door opening, streetlight and moonlight pouring in to illuminate half-naked bodies. She didn’t even say anything, just slammed the door and then let out a strangled yelp as if she’d accidentally discovered a dead body.

“I feel like we could’ve been more careful than that,” Harry says.

Jean smiles with teeth. “You were very suicidal. You didn’t care.”

“And, what, you also didn’t care?”

“No, but I found it arousing how little you cared.”

EMPATHY: He still does, you can hear it in his voice. Danger makes him tingly. That’s probably why he was attracted to you, the human land mine.

“For the record,” Jean adds, smoothing his messed-up hair, “there was both intercourse and fellatio. Far more of the second than of the first, but they must have both made an impression on you.”

Harry buttons his jacket back up and smoothes a crease in his pants. “I’m glad I remembered that.”

“I’m glad you remembered _something_ accurately, at least.”

“I have a very important question, now,” Harry begins.

Jean rolls his eyes. “I received the intercourse all three times. Your masculinity is unsullied.”

AUTHORITY: Thank god.

CONCEPTUALIZATION: No, this is lame. You would be much more worldly and cool if you had been fucked in the ass at least once.

AUTHORITY: Don’t let this art school terrorist talk you into letting someone fuck you in the ass.

PHYSICAL INSTRUMENT: Jean has the nicer ass, anyway.

Harry studies Jean’s ass. This is correct. He could probably even fill out those labourer jeans that Harry found. Maybe he would accept them as a gift?

“You keep telling everyone you’re fine and back to normal,” Jean says, “but you’ve just spent the last ten seconds staring at my ass while mouthing silently to yourself.”

Harry looks back up at his face. “Do you ever wear jeans?”

“Leave me alone,” Jean says crossly, buttoning his own jacket back up and folding his arms protectively over his chest. “Keep printing these ICP files, please. I need to have a briefing on them prepared by tomorrow morning.”

“Is police work just paperwork and briefings? I thought the RCM shot people all the time.”

“Beat cops and lazy lieutenants shoot people all the time,” Jean says. “You and I try to do as much actual police work as we can, which involves paperwork, reading, and boring conversations.”

‘Lazy lieutenant’ jogs Harry’s memory again. “McCoy,” he says.

Jean, who’s halfway out the door, looks at him expectantly.

“McCoy,” Harry says. “He’s the lazy lieutenant you don’t like. I remember that.”

Jean hesitates, then gives him a little ghost of a smile. “You’re right.”

“Kills two people a week,” Harry says.

“Yes, that’s our John,” says Jean.

He pulls the door shut and leaves Harry alone again.

Harry waits a moment, then secrets the speed from his jacket pocket and snorts some before returning to the mind-numbing task of calling up the ICP to print more files.

/

Harry doesn’t go home to the hellhole of broken glass and cigarette butts. After saying goodnight to Kim — who, traitorously, still lives near the GRIH — he goes to a cafeteria on the opposite side of the motorway 8/81 ramp from the precinct.

This cafeteria is a lot like the precinct itself: a sad, dingy place, housed in a gorgeous pre-war building. An extravagant glass ceiling stretches overhead, throwing sparkling light and shadow on the tables and the bar.

Harry desperately wants to drink, but is fighting that desire. He thinks that if he eats some food, it might quiet down. As he’s walking up to the bar to order, he spots someone familiar out of the corner of his eye and wheels around.

Garte is walking around, making notes on a clipboard. He looks up, and his eyes widen in concern.

“You!” Harry bellows, pointing at him.

“Please,” Garte begs him.

“What are you doing here?”

“I told you I live in Jamrock and manage a number of cafeterias in the area!”

People are staring.

“You sold me out to my coworkers!” Harry says. He’s well-aware this is the speed talking — he barely even cares about anything he’s saying, but the amphetamines are making him want to yell and act stupid. “After everything I did for you!”

Garte looks confused. “What did you do for me?”

“Is there a problem?” the guy behind the bar says, leaning over. “Mr. Garte?”

AUTHORITY: _Mr._ Garte? Interesting.

Garte shakes his head, but shoots the guy a meaningful look.

EMPATHY: He’s implying there might be a problem soon, though not quite yet.

“I saved your bacon,” Harry says. “You would have been mowed down by machine gun fire if not for me.”

“Yes, and I told you I appreciated what you did,” Garte says. “Now, is there something I can do for you?”

“Yes, you can pour me a rum and lemonade.”

“I am not a bartender!” Garte exclaims, looking like he’s truly at the end of his rope. He turns to the man behind the bar. “Do not, under _any_ circumstances, serve this man alcohol.”

ELECTROCHEMISTRY: You crazy son of a bitch. You’ve blown it. Now you’re going to have to go drink vodka out of the puddle seeping from a garbage bag behind the Coastal Balafre Bar next door.

The bartender nods. Traitor.

/

After leaving the horrible cafeteria full of enemy combatants, Harry goes wandering down Boogie Street like he did yesterday. But he knows where his legs are carrying him, this time — Jean’s apartment. This is half about Jean, and half about the bottle of vodka behind the drawer in Jean’s bathroom.

By the time he makes it there, Harry’s gunshot wound is bleeding afresh. He doesn’t find the spare key this time, so he knocks hard.

“Yes?” Jean calls.

ESPRIT DE CORPS: His hand is on his Villiers as he says this. People in Jamrock don’t usually pound on each other’s doors for _good_ reasons.

“It’s me,” Harry calls. There’s silence, so he adds, “Harrier Du Bois.”

Another moment passes before the lock clicks and the door opens an inch, revealing a chain lock. “Yes, I know who _me_ is,” Jean says, squinting at him. The door shuts again while he undoes the chain, then opens for real.

“You’ve increased your security,” Harry notes as he comes inside.

“A crazy man broke into my apartment yesterday,” Jean says, returning to his living room couch, which is covered in paperwork.

He’s dressed like he was when Harry broke in, wearing a t-shirt and boxers. The t-shirt says REVACHOL CITIZEN’S MILITIA ANNUAL 5K CHARITY RUN ‘49 on it, and is almost threadbare. There’s a hole underneath the back of the collar, in the neck, that exposes the bump of Jean’s C7 vertebrae.

ENCYCLOPEDIA: You’ve kissed him on that spot before, when he was wearing this shirt. He was sitting on your lap at the time.

Jean continues looking through the paperwork, but is clearly flustered by Harry’s unwavering stare.

“My leg is bleeding,” Harry says. “I walked here.”

Jean finally looks up. “Do you need a fresh bandage?”

PHYSICAL INSTRUMENT: It would be helpful.

“I do,” Harry says. “Can you do that?”

“Of course I can.”

EMPATHY: Despite knowing you have amnesia, Jean finds it deeply annoying when you can’t remember basic things about him. He feels like you’re doing this on purpose to hurt his feelings. (You’ve done a lot of bad things on purpose to hurt his feelings.)

“I would also like some drouamine,” Harry says. “If you have any.” He pauses. “I feel like I should tell you that I took some speed earlier, at work.”

Jean sighs and stands up, beckoning him to the bathroom. Harry follows him. “Did you drink today?”

“No,” Harry says.

DRAMA: Not for lack of trying, of course.

“That’s good,” Jean says. When they reach the bathroom, he closes the lid of the toilet and gestures for Harry to sit down on it, then retrieves a first aid kit and takes his own seat on the edge of the bathtub. “Take your pants off.”

Harry undoes his belt and shimmies his pants down to his knees, exposing the mangled nightmare that is his left quadriceps. Jean doesn’t seem fazed by it.

ESPRIT DE CORPS: He’s seen much worse, many times.

Jean peels the existing bandage off and begins to clean Harry’s wound with a liquid that foams and stings, before coating it in an ointment that numbs him. Harry watches him work in silence.

“Kim did a good job,” Jean murmurs. “My bandaging won’t be quite as neat.”

“I forgive you,” Harry says.

Jean snorts. He lets the ointment sit for a few more moments, then wraps a fresh bandage around Harry’s thigh, securing it with gauze. He gives his knee a tender pat before standing up. “Please stop walking kilometers at a time on this leg. Let it rest.”

“How am I supposed to get around?” Harry says, looking up at him.

Jean sighs. “I truly don’t know. This is why it’s inadvisable to drive your car into the sea.”

“I was trying to die,” Harry says. “I thought I would die, and I wouldn’t have to deal with not having a car, because I’d be dead.”

“You’re not very good at killing yourself,” Jean snaps. “Maybe you should stop trying.”

Harry stands up and tugs his pants back up, redoing his belt. “Can I help you with whatever you’re doing out there?”

Jean hesitates.

EMPATHY: He wants to kick you out before you start kissing him again. Breaking that kiss earlier took all his willpower; he doesn’t know if he can muster it a second time today.

“If you actually help me,” Jean says, “and don’t touch me… then yes, there are some questions I had for you about the power structure of the Débardeurs' Union, and their weak points.”

“Evrart is too fat to move,” Harry says. “They use a crane to move his container around. So he’s probably pretty easy to pin down.”

Jean heads back into the living room with Harry on his heels. “That is helpful,” he says. “The ICP didn’t know that.”

“A little Ubi man puts vodka in the workers’ borscht to keep them docile,” Harry adds.

Jean gives him a double take as he sits on the couch. “How much vodka?”

“A lot,” Harry says, moving some papers so he can sit, too.

“Hold on,” Jean says, reaching out to take them from him. “I had those in order.”

Harry looks at the chaos surrounding them. “What order?”

“I have a system.”

“Like décomptage?”

Jean is distracted, now, putting the papers back in order. “No,” he says after a moment. “My own system, not the RCM’s.”

Harry nods. “Do you name your cases?”

“Yes,” Jean says. “We all do. But…” He hesitates. “You and I usually gave our cases two names. One official one, for paperwork, and then a funny one, for private use between us.”

Harry doesn’t remember this, but it sounds right. “What do you want to call the Claires case?”

“I don’t know,” Jean says, shrugging. “Fat Man In A Box?”

RHETORIC: Could be funnier.

“We’ll workshop it,” Harry says.

Jean snorts — half in amusement, half in annoyance. “Take this employee ledger,” he says, handing Harry a stack of papers along with a pen. “Go through it. I left spaces for you to add notes on the individual workers. Anyone you’ve met, or heard about secondhand.”

Harry accepts the papers. “Jean,” he says. “You don’t have any alcohol here, do you?”

“No,” Jean says immediately. “I threw all of mine out months ago. You used to come here and beat my door down looking for something to drink, after you’d drank your own apartment dry.” He shoots him a suspicious look. “Why?”

“Just wondering. And you actually do, by the way,” Harry says. “I found a bottle of vodka hidden under your sink yesterday. I’m guessing I stashed it here at some point.”

Jean looks perturbed. “Was it open?”

“Yeah, and half empty.”

“I’ll throw it out,” Jean says. “Thank you for letting me know. You must have hidden it well.”

ELECTROCHEMISTRY: You idiot. You fucking idiot.

VOLITION: Good work, detective.

Harry starts going through the employee ledger. He finds Titus’s name and uses Jean’s pen to write beside it, _COOL GUY. RCM MATERIAL._


End file.
